Posted for "John W. Cox" <johnwcox@pacificnw.com>:

 Ric,  thank you for sharing and encapsulating a clear concise and
 valuable message on this forum.  Seems your flying followed similar
 form.
 
 John Cox
 

"""
 - Lastly, I believe that the LML forum absolutely played a role in
 getting me down safely, specially since, prior to my 'incident', I was
 reading all the posting on Shannon's unfortunate accident.  It is
 important to note that until it actually happens to you, it is very
 difficult to describe the resistance in ones mind to accept the reality
 of the situation and take action immediately.  You say to yourself, as I
 did, that this is not happening, it's only a minor glitch and it will
 correct itself in a few moments.  I can honestly say that it was one
 weird feeling and very difficult to overcome.  The tendency to try and
 correct the problem (after the normal emergency checklist items have
 been done) is overwhelming.
"""

[I second John's words, Rick... I can't begin to tell you how pleased I am to know that the LML was instrumental in your excellent decisionmaking process. Thanks for the kudos, but they're really all yours... YOU were the guy who did it right.

BTW, I recently discovered that there's actually an advisory circular available from the FAA called "Aeronautical Decision Making", AC 60-22, and it probably is one of those things that should be added to all of our bookshelves.  I haven't seen the entire thing yet, but learned a lot from the portions of it that are reprinted in the FAA Glider Flying Handbook, whose first chapter is all about ADM and it expands nicely on much of what has been said here over the last several weeks.  If anyone follows my suggestion and gets a copy of the AC before I do, please post your thoughts on it.

   <marv>           ]